Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/200

 STANZA XIX.

Yet man was not; then great Cawtantowit spoke To the hard mountain crags, and called for man. According to the traditions of the Narragansets, the Great Spirit formed the first man from a stone, which, disliking, he broke, and then formed another man and woman from a tree; and from this pair sprang the Indians. STANZA XXII. Then did he send Yotaanit on high—

Yotaanit was the God of Fire; Keesuckquand, God of the Sun; Nanapaushat, of the Moon; and Wamponand was the ruling Deity of the East.

STANZA XXIII.

''All things thus were formed from what was good, And the foul refuse every evil had; But it had felt the influence of the God, (How should it not?)—''

Heckewelder ascribes to the Indians the opinion that nothing bad could proceed from the Great and Good Spirit. Waban is here speaking in conformity to that opinion. Hence he represents the creation of Chepian, or the evil principle, as an incidental but necessary effect, yet forming no part of the original design.

STANZA XXVII.

''And manittoos, that never death shall fear, Do too within this moral form abide.''

"They conceive," says Williams, "that there are many gods, or divine powers, within the body of man—in his pulse, heart, lungs, &c."

XXVIII.

''But if a sluggard and a coward, then To rove all wretched in the gloom of night.''